The Death of Dreams

Genre: Short Story

Worry is the shadow of the doer.
~ Pundit Ravi Shankar ~

the death of dreams
Visvanathan Balasaravanan

Sun refused to show its face. Clouds empire. The morning seemed to be a dull evening.

John stood over his house like a big cross placed over a church. He slowly looked up into the air through the sky. Clouds melted over him. Some droplets kissed him and rolled over his troughed cheek.

John was not able to recollect when he last laughed heartfully. He has many friends (supposed to be friends), but not a single had known that John was an easy-to-influence boy. John had just passed the stage of being called the ‘boy’, and about to enter the next stage, ‘the man’. Though he moves freely with everyone and talks a lot unless or otherwise he becomes dumb or the listener goes deaf, he never told his friends, close friends, about his plans, problems and feelings. He crammed within himself all that he had. In the college, he was a trendsetter and was bold enough to expose some new fashions in his muscle-less face, with all-time enthusiasm in it.

The reason, for which John was worrying, would be nothing to others. Most of the turbulent youth would even not mind for what John was afraid, sad, angry… If anybody knew John’s problems, they would just laugh at him or just praise him as he had at least responsibility.

‘Jo is a very active boy! Will do everything with immense interest and aims at perfection! He is very keennnnnn in making no mistakes and in not losing out anything!’, Sudha, one of John’s friends, would spray out the ‘The John Identity’, when someone enquired her about John. Similar sprays on John would reveal that, he was not only good in studies, but also in cricket. He occasionally presented papers in symposia, at least to gain some new girlfriends. Actually, John fell in love and was seriously loving three girls, but (honestly) one at a time. And he had his own valid (!!) reasons to justify, why he switched from his first lover to the second and from the second to the third. But, he never let his mouth water on seeing girls or never gapped at them. But would watch them when they didn’t.

Something approached John and touched him. The wind, he felt. An old soft notebook was on the parapet wall by his side. Sometimes, he turns into a poet and writes some poems (as he would say) about his own experiences in that soft book. He wrote all that he thought. The title of his poem that he wrote on that day would reveal his melancholic mood.

The death of dreams
I stood
With my arms stretched
To its full.
I looked up into the sky.
But didn’t know why.
Twenty-one droplets, called rain,
Approached me. One of them
fell flat and rolled over my
troughed cheek.

In real,
Must that droplet carry a little salt?

All this happened,
When I didn’t knew how to cry?
To pour out my painful feelings.

But be never cried. John was a wild and wonderful dreamer. With his dreams, he married almost every single (beautiful) girl and lived happily with them as long as he can until he got bored and jumped to the next. Similarly, he dreamed about his next-day activities and future successes. If things don’t travel the way he thought them to be he gets into out-of-mood immediately. So he was very cautious in completing things as he wanted them to be accomplished with ‘The John Identity’. Likewise, he had dreamt a lot about his future, his job, his clothing, his home, his friends, his wife, his hair-style, his surroundings, his living place, his victories and many others. If any of these things ran out-of-track, then he would be totally upset.

In some very heavy work of
Cycling, I never knew
How to dream?

I lost myself in the mysteries,
As they were to me,
Of the world that provides
Food for what I am.

John never knew what made him write these lines. But he wrote, like some exaggerating newspapers do. For the moment, John loved Malli (of courses with The John Identity). He had never spoke to her but he loved her by their usual staring during the ‘aimless’ verandah-walks. Malli was a quiet girl, who was junior to John in college. John didn’t know anything about her but was greatly attracted towards her mellifluous voice as she sings in the college orchestra amidst the riling drums. He never forgot to include her in his poems but this time he was aching to say something to her.

I could remember
Some of my hazy memories
About her.
Did I forget you dear?
No. I was searching for a reason
To shout aloud,
‘You will be safe with me!’
But when? …when would the
Dream duets turn real?
…
…
or will I die without you ?
…
…

John was unable to take charge of his present situation. So, he was in need of someone. On whom, he may throw the ‘cause-for’s easily, for those things which went wrong. Jesus was very grateful enough to be that someone. Anybody who had observed John by those times, might have looked at the ‘newly-launched’ holy cross below his neck. Also, he was often noticed in the aisle of the church. The optimist called ‘John’ was lost somewhere, somehow and the pessimist in him made him write,

I began to see the
Best of nothing … and the
Worst of everything.

There were a few things on which John felt comfortable. They were,
Home, the safest place
His parents, the almighty
His six-inch thick cotton mattress, which he used even in that hot summer. When he was fed up with his work, only those motivating words from his father and mother would console him.

Nothing in his lifetime of twenty-one years had troubled John except this ‘Job-Searching’ process. All that he was in need of was a job.

One hundred calls and letters.
But not a single to bring in
The value to my graduation.

I would sit motionless and
Gaze at the telephone – its
Cloth-cover may wave in the wind,
‘When will it ring next?
Will that bring me an offer letter?’

The reason for this revulsion in John might be his failure in his first interview and the non-proceeding proceedings of all his efforts to get placed somewhere in company.

Sometimes, John would stand in front of the mirror. Then, he tried to smile a bit. That too, he rightly identified his state of not being normal and sings in his final lines,

Artificial smiles;
My next episode of tears.

John was standing still; unable to find out what to think or how to think?
‘POST!’, a voice reached him.
He thought for a while. Then, he swiftly ran to pick it up.

To
‘Just-Finished’ Graduates

- the most blessed are those who encounter the toughest times... because, God thought you are the strongest to handle these toughest...